Theodore Rex

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years, Theodore Rex is a sequel to Edmund Morris's classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. It begins by following the new President (still the youngest in American history) as he comes down from Mount Marcy, New York, to take his emergency oath of office in Buffalo, one hundred years ago.

A detailed prologue describes TR's assumption of power and journey to Washington, with the assassinated President McKinley riding behind him like a ghost of the nineteenth century. (Trains rumble throughout this irresistibly moving narrative, as TR crosses and recrosses the nation.) Traveling south through a succession of haunting landscapes, TR encounters harbingers of all the major issues of the new century — Imperialism, Industrialism, Conservation, Immigration, Labor, Race — plus the overall challenge that intimidated McKinley: how to harness America's new power as the world's richest nation.

Theodore Rex (the title is taken from a quip by Henry James) tells the story of the following seven and a half years — years in which TR entertains, infuriates, amuses, strong-arms, and seduces the body politic into a state of almost total subservience to his will. It is not always a pretty story: one of the revelations here is that TR was hated and feared by a substantial minority of his fellow citizens. Wall Street, the white South, Western lumber barons, even his own Republican leadership in Congress strive to harness his steadily increasing power.

Within weeks of arrival in Washington, TR causes a nationwide sensation by becoming the first President to invite a black man to dinner in the White House. Next, he launches his famous prosecution of the Northern Securities Company, and follows up with landmark antitrust legislation. He liberates Cuba, determines the route of the Panama Canal, mediates the great Anthracite Strike, and resolves the Venezuela Crisis of 1902-1903 with such masterful secrecy that the world at large is unaware how near the United States and Germany have come to war.

During an epic national tour in the spring of 1903, TR's conservation philosophy (his single greatest gift to posterity) comes into full flower. He also bestows on countless Americans the richness of a personality without parallel-evangelical and passionate, yet lusty and funny; adroitly political, winningly natural, intellectually overwhelming. The most famous father of his time, he is adored by his six children (although beautiful, willful "Princess" Alice rebelled against him) and accepted as an honorary member of the White House Gang of seditious small boys.

Theodore Rex, full of cinematic detail, moves with the exhilarating pace of a novel, yet it rides on a granite base of scholarship. TR's own voice is constantly heard, as the President was a gifted letter writer and raconteur. Also heard are the many witticisms, sometimes mocking, yet always affectionate, of such Roosevelt intimates as Henry Adams, John Hay, and Elihu Root. ("Theodore is never sober," said Adams, "only he is drunk with himself and not with rum.")

TR's speed of thought and action, and his total command of all aspects of presidential leadership, from bureaucratic subterfuge to manipulation of the press, make him all but invincible in 1904, when he wins a second term by a historic landslide. Surprisingly, this victory transforms him from a patrician conservative to a progressive, responsible between 1905 and 1908 for a raft of enlightened legislation, including the Pure Food and Employer Liability acts. Even more surprising, to critics who have caricatured TR as a swinger of the Big Stick, is his emergence as a diplomat. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing about an end to the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

Interspersed with many stories of Rooseveltian triumphs are some bitter episodes — notably a devastating lynching — that remind us of America's deep prejudices and fears. Theodore Rex does not attempt to justify TR's notorious action following the Brownsville Incident of 1906 — his worst mistake as President — but neither does this resolutely honest biography indulge in the easy wisdom of hindsight. It is written throughout in real time, reflecting the world as TR saw it. By the final chapter, as the great "Teddy" prepares to quit the White House in 1909, it will be a hard-hearted reader who does not share the sentiment of Henry Adams: "The old house will seem dull and sad when my Theodore has gone."

Review:

"A shining portrait of a presciently modern political genius maneuvering in a gilded age of wealth, optimism, excess and American global ascension." San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"Morris excels at placing TR in the context of his time, showing how he outmaneuvered powerful but ossified opponents from the Gilded Age and trumped isolationists by averting war, in the process winning the first Nobel Peace Prize." Library Journal

Review:

"[Morris] writes with a breezy verve that makes the pages fly, and that perfectly suits his subject....A combination of diffidence and enthusiasm allows him to write of our past — which looks like our future — with energy and clarity." Richard Brookhiser, New York Times Book Review

Review:

"In Edmund Morris, a great president has found a great biographer....Every bit as much a masterpiece of biographical writing as The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which won the Pulitzer Prize." The Washington Post

Review:

"Take a deep breath and dive into Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris's sequel to his 1979 masterpiece, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt....He writes with a breezy verve that makes the pages fly." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"As a literary work on Theodore Roosevelt, it is unlikely ever to be surpassed. It is one of the great histories of the American presidency, worthy of being on a shelf alongside Henry Adams's volumes on Jefferson and Madison." Times Literary Supplement

Review:

"Roosevelt is a biographer's dream, an epic character not out of place in an adventure novel." The Christian Science Monitor

Synopsis:

US

Synopsis:

Theodore Rexis the story&#8212;never fully told before&#8212;of Theodore Roosevelts two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chief executives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhuman energy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat the problems of race and labor relations and trust control while making the Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But his most historic achievement remains his creation of a national conservation policy, and his monument millions of acres of protected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TR leaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputation secure as one of our greatest presidents.

About the Author

Edmund Morris was born and educated in Kenya and went to college in South Africa. He worked as an advertising copywriter in London before immigrating to the United States in 1968. His biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award in 1980. After spending several years as President Reagan's authorized biographer, he published the national bestseller Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan in 1999. He has written extensively on travel and the arts for such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine. Edmund Morris lives in New York and Washington with his wife and fellow biographer, Sylvia Jukes Morris.

xbrock99, July 10, 2007 (view all comments by xbrock99)
This book got me hooked on Presidential biographies. A thoughtful and insightful look into a man who overcame many physical obstacles and beat the Republican establishment to become the President who shepherded the country into the modern age of superpowers. This book does overlook some of TR's shortcomings, but combined with Theodore Rex, provides an amazingly complete portrait of the man and his time.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No(7 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)

"Review"
by San Francisco Chronicle,
"A shining portrait of a presciently modern political genius maneuvering in a gilded age of wealth, optimism, excess and American global ascension."

"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Morris excels at placing TR in the context of his time, showing how he outmaneuvered powerful but ossified opponents from the Gilded Age and trumped isolationists by averting war, in the process winning the first Nobel Peace Prize."

"Review"
by Richard Brookhiser, New York Times Book Review,
"[Morris] writes with a breezy verve that makes the pages fly, and that perfectly suits his subject....A combination of diffidence and enthusiasm allows him to write of our past — which looks like our future — with energy and clarity."

"Review"
by The Washington Post,
"In Edmund Morris, a great president has found a great biographer....Every bit as much a masterpiece of biographical writing as The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which won the Pulitzer Prize."

"Review"
by The New York Times Book Review,
"Take a deep breath and dive into Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris's sequel to his 1979 masterpiece, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt....He writes with a breezy verve that makes the pages fly."

"Review"
by Times Literary Supplement,
"As a literary work on Theodore Roosevelt, it is unlikely ever to be surpassed. It is one of the great histories of the American presidency, worthy of being on a shelf alongside Henry Adams's volumes on Jefferson and Madison."

"Review"
by The Christian Science Monitor,
"Roosevelt is a biographer's dream, an epic character not out of place in an adventure novel."

"Synopsis"
by Random,
US

"Synopsis"
by Random,
Theodore Rexis the story&#8212;never fully told before&#8212;of Theodore Roosevelts two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chief executives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhuman energy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat the problems of race and labor relations and trust control while making the Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But his most historic achievement remains his creation of a national conservation policy, and his monument millions of acres of protected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TR leaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputation secure as one of our greatest presidents.

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